Network Transparency

Peoples Telephone Cooperative, Inc. & Subsidiaries Network Transparency Statement

Peoples Telephone Cooperative, Inc. and its subsidiaries (“Peoples” or “Company”) provides this Network Transparency  statement in accordance with the FCC’s Restore Internet Freedom Rules to ensure that you have sufficient information to make informed choices about the purchase of broadband services.  Information about Peoples’ other policies and practices concerning broadband are available at our website.

Peoples engages in network management practices that are tailored and appropriate for achieving optimization on the network considering the particular network architecture and technology of its broadband Internet access service. Peoples’ goal is to ensure that all of its customers experience a safe and secure broadband Internet environment that is fast, reliable and affordable.  Peoples wants its customers to indulge in all that the Internet has to offer, whether it is social networking, streaming videos and music, to communicating through email and videoconferencing.

Peoples’ network management includes congestion- and security-protocol-management and customers generally will not be impacted by the protocols and practices that Peoples uses to manage its network.

A. Network Transparency Disclosures

Peoples uses various tools and industry standard techniques to manage its network and deliver fast, secure and reliable Internet service.  Peoples believes in full transparency and provides the following disclosures about its network management practices: 

  1. Blocking: Peoples does not block or discriminate against lawful content.
  1. Throttling: Peoples does not throttle, impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic.
  1. Affiliated Prioritization: Peoples does not prioritize Internet traffic and has no plans to do so.
  1. Paid Prioritization: Peoples has never engaged in paid prioritization. We don’t prioritize Internet for consideration to benefit particular content, applications, services or devices. Peoples does not have plans to enter into paid prioritization deals to create fast lanes.
  2. Congestion Management: Peoples monitors the connections on its network in the aggregate on a daily basis to determine the rate of utilization. If congestion emerges on the network, Peoples will take the appropriate measures to relieve congestion.

On Peoples’ network, all customers have access to all legal services, applications and content online and, in the event of congestion, most Internet activities will be unaffected.  Some customers, however, may experience longer download or upload times, or slower surf speeds on the web if instances of congestion do occur on Peoples’ network.

Customers using conduct that abuses or threatens the Peoples network or which violates the company’s Acceptable Use Policy, Internet service Terms and Conditions, or the Internet Service Agreement will be asked to stop any such use immediately.  A failure to respond or to cease any such conduct could result in service suspension or termination.

Peoples’ network and congestion management practices are ‘application-agnostic’, based on current network conditions, and are not implemented on the basis of customers’ online activities, protocols or applications. Peoples’ network management practices do not relate to any particular customer’s aggregate monthly data usage.

Peoples monitors its core links for congestion concerns and issues. If capacity exceeds Peoples standards, additional capacity will be added to the affected link or traffic may be re-routed to an un-congested link.

  1. Application-Specific BehaviorExcept as may be provided elsewhere herein, Peoples does not currently engage in any application-specific behaviors on its network. Customers may use any lawful applications with Peoples.
  2. Device Attachment Rules: Customers equipment that are subscribing to DSL or fixed wireless broadband services are authenticated via MAC address. Only one MAC address is allowed per account. For best results, DSL modems, wireless modems, or other proprietary network gateways used on the Peoples broadband network should be provided by Peoples. Customers may attach devices of their choosing to their modems, including wired or wireless routers, laptops, desktop computers, video game systems, televisions, or other network-enabled electronics equipment. However, customers are responsible for ensuring that their equipment does not harm Peoples’ network or impair the service of other customers. Peoples is not responsible for the functionality or compatibility of any equipment provided by its customers. Customers are responsible for securing their own equipment to prevent unauthorized access to Peoples’ broadband network by third parties and will be held responsible for the actions of such third parties who gain unauthorized access through unsecured customer equipment.
  3. Network Security: Peoples knows the importance of securing its network and customers from network threats and annoyances. The company promotes the security of its network and patrons by protections from such threats as spam, viruses, firewall issues, and phishing schemes.  Peoples also deploys spam filters in order to divert spam from an online customer’s email inbox into a quarantine file while allowing the customer to control which emails are identified as spam.  Customers may access the spam files through the email.  Spam files are automatically deleted if not accessed within 30 days.

As its normal practice, Peoples does not block any protocols, content or traffic for purposes of network management, but Peoples may block or limit such traffic as spam, viruses, malware, or denial of service attacks to protect network integrity and the security of our customers.

B. Network Performance

  1. Service Descriptions 

Peoples deploys Internet access to its subscribers via DSL, fiber and fixed wireless broadband.

  1. Network Performance

Peoples makes every effort to support advertised speeds and will troubleshoot customer connections as needed to resolve speed and application performance caused by Peoples’ network.  Peoples measures availability, latency, and aggregate utilization on the network and strives to meet internal service level targets.

However, the bandwidth speed at which a particular distant website or other Internet resources may be downloaded, or the speed at which your customer information may be uploaded to a distant website or Internet location is affected by factors beyond Peoples’ control, including the speed of the connection from a distant web server to the Internet, congestion on intermediate networks, and/or limitations on your own computer equipment, including a wireless router.  In addition, your service performance may be affected by the inside wiring at your premise and/or the number of connected devices operating on your network.  Accordingly, you, the customer, must consider the capabilities of your own equipment when choosing a Peoples broadband service. Your computers and/or wireless or other networks in your homes or offices may need an upgrade in order to take full advantage of the chosen Peoples broadband plan.

For the wireless service, Peoples measures Bit Error Rate (BER) and the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) parameters for transmission rates, latency, and traffic every 15 min.  For DSL, Fiber and T1 service, Peoples measures traffic every 5 min.  All services are best effort.

Peoples tests each service for actual and expected access speeds at the time of network installation to demonstrate that the service is capable of supporting the advertised speed.

Customers may also test their actual speeds using the speed test on Peoples’ website and may request assistance by calling our business office at (800) 333-9779 or email us.

Based on the network information Peoples receives from its monitoring efforts, Peoples’ network is delivering data transmission rates advertised for the different high-speed Internet services. To be sure, Peoples has implemented a program of testing the performance of its network by using a test protocol similar to the one sanctioned by the FCC.  We installed specific network performance monitoring equipment at aggregation points across our network and conducted a series of tests using this equipment. Peoples reports the results of this testing below. This result applies to both upload and download data rates, and applies for measurements made both at peak times and over a 24-hour period:

Download and Upload Results

Download

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
2 Mbps 2.02 +1
4 Mbps 3.91 -2.25
6 Mbps 6.59 +9.83
10 Mbps 10.18 +1.8
20 Mbps 21.73 +8.65
40 Mbps 41.40 +3.5
60 Mbps 61.46 +2.43

Upload

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
1 Mbps 1.34 +34
1 Mbps 1.02 +2
1 Mbps .97 -3.0
1 Mbps 1.09 +9
2 Mbps 2.16 +8
4 Mbps 4.12 +3.0
6 Mbps 6.58 +9.66
Download

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
15 Mbps 15.12 +.8
25 Mbps 25.82 +3.28
50 Mbps 51.66 +3.32
75 Mbps 75.19 +.25
100 Mbps 100.09 +.09

Upload

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
2 Mbps 2.36 +18
5 Mbps 5.48 +9.6
7 Mbps 7.21 +3.0
10 Mbps 10.86 +8.6
Download

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
8 Mbps 8.06 +.75
15 Mbps 15.68 +4.53
20 Mbps 21.96 +9.8
40 Mbps 41.36 +3.4

Upload

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
1 Mbps 1.18 +18
1 Mbps 1.25 +25
1 Mbps 1.16 +16
2 Mbps 2.21 +10.5
Download

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
15 Mbps 15.20 +1.33
25 Mbps 25.67 +2.68
50 Mbps 50.83 +1.66
75 Mbps 75.23 +.306
100 Mbps 100.12 +.12

Upload

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
1 Mbps 1.71 +71
2 Mbps 2.57 +28.5
5 Mbps 5.32 +6.4
7 Mbps 7.02 +.285
10 Mbps 10.72 +7.2
Download

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
2 Mbps 1.86 -7.0
4 Mbps 3.92 -2.0
8 Mbps 7.86 -1.75
16 Mbps 12.70 -20.62

Upload

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
1 Mbps 1.03 +3.0
1 Mbps 1.17 +17.0
2 Mbps 2.01 +.5
2 Mbps 1.98 -1.0
Download

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
10 Mbps 9.50 -5.0
15 Mbps 15.29 +1.93
25 Mbps 24.85 +3.4
50 Mbps 49.84 -.32

Upload

Advertised Actual Percentage Differential
2 Mbps 2.33 +16.5
5 Mbps 5.85 +17
5 Mbps 5.40 +8
10 Mbps 10.37 +3.7
  1. Impact of Non-BIAS Data Services

Peoples provides Voice-over-the-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) to its fixed wireless customers.  The VoIP traffic uses private RFC 1918 addresses, dedicated paths for VoIP and QoS on the routers/switches it touches.  The QoS priority is based on the source and destination IP.  Where VoIP traffic is combined with best effort Internet traffic and QoS priority is employed, the network could endure marginal delays if there are instances of bandwidth contention, although very unlikely.

 C. Commercial Terms

Pricing and additional service information is outline on the Product pages of peoplescom.net.

In addition to this Network Transparency Statement, patrons may also find links to the following on the Peoples Website:

For questions, complaints or requests for additional information, please contact Peoples at:

Business Office at (800) 333-9779

Email Customer Service